1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to microprocessors. In particular, the invention relates to processor security.
2. Description of Related Art
Advances in microprocessor and communication technologies have opened up many opportunities for applications that go beyond the traditional ways of doing business. Electronic commerce (E-commerce) and business-to-business (B2B) transactions are now becoming popular and are conducted throughout global markets at continuously increasing rates. Unfortunately, while modern microprocessor systems provide users convenient and efficient methods of doing business, communicating and transacting, they are also vulnerable for unscrupulous attacks. Examples of these attacks include virus, intrusion, security breach, and tampering, to name a few. Computer security, therefore, is becoming more and more important to protect the integrity of the computer systems and increase the trust of users.
Threats caused by unscrupulous attacks may be in a number of forms. An invasive remote-launched attack by hackers may disrupt the normal operation of a system connected to thousands or even millions of users. A virus program may corrupt code and/or data of a single-user platform.
Existing techniques to protect against attacks have a number of drawbacks. Anti-virus programs can only scan and detect known viruses. Security co-processors or smart cards using cryptographic or other security techniques have limitations in speed performance, memory capacity, and flexibility. Further, redesigning operating systems creates software compatibility issues and requires tremendous investment in development efforts.